


You've Been Waiting for this Day

by LSims



Category: Bandstand - Oberacker/Oberacker & Taylor
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:02:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24042520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LSims/pseuds/LSims
Summary: Gay marriage is legalized. Jimmy finally gets what he deserves.
Relationships: Jimmy Campbell/Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 12





	You've Been Waiting for this Day

It was a cool, sunny day on June 26, 2015. It was just the kind of day Jimmy loved to wake up to. 

He blinked and groaned, attempting to grab his glasses, and sighed in defeat when his arthritis said otherwise. 

“Morning.”

Jimmy looked up and smiled at the blurry face above him. “Charlie.”

“Jimmy.”

“Need some help getting those?”

“I suppose.”

They’d been teasing each other for 63 years.

Jimmy smiles once again as he feels the glasses drop down on his face. “I think we might need Carla to help me.” He croaks.

“I suppose.”

Their lively caretaker bounces in with a smirk. “Need some help, Jimmy?”

“Please.”

She gently lifts the old man up into a sitting position and rolls his walker over to him before helping him stand. Like every time Carla helps him, Jimmy smiles in gratitude. 

“Thank you.”

“Hey, don’t thank me, I get paid.”

He heads towards the bathroom to relieve himself and put in his dentures before joining Charlie in their kitchen.

Carla bumbles around, making breakfast as Charlie laughs at a story Jimmy recalls from his band days. She hands the men their cups of water and pills. 

Jimmy attempts to lift the pill up to his mouth and hisses in pain as Carla and Charlie looked up in concern.

“Arthritis again?” She asks, and he nods. “I’ll get the heating pads.”

“Let me help you,” Charlie says, gently feeding Jimmy the pill and water.

“How do you stay so youthful?” Jimmy asks, sighing slightly. Charlie grins.

“I’m eighty-seven. That’s young.”

“You’re eighty-seven. The little hair you have left is completely white.”

Charlie gasped dramatically. “You didn’t have to  _ remind _ me!”

Carla returns, heating pad in hand. “I hope you boys aren’t being  _ too  _ mean, right?”

“Right.” Charlie agrees with an innocent smile. Jimmy rolls his eyes.

“So what’s on the menu today?” Carla asks as she makes a batch of her famous extra-soft scrambled eggs. “Any exciting plans?”

Jimmy shrugs. “Not much. We’ll probably just take a walk, watch TV, the usual.”

“You know, there’s a bingo game happening over at the senior center.”

“My eye-sights too bad.” That, and he hates bingo.

“Well, just thought I’d suggest spicing up your routine a little.” 

“It’s alright.” 

Carla serves Charlie the plate of eggs and his Jimmy a stack of toast. “Figured it'd be easier to eat with your left arm.”

He nods gratefully and digs in.

There’s a thump at the front door, and they all look towards it. 

“I’ll get it.” Carla volunteers. She drops off the paper a moment later and joins her boys at the table with her own plate of eggs. 

Charlie opens it up and gasps when he reads the headline.

“What?” Jimmy and Carla ask in unison.

Charlie doesn’t respond, staring at the paper with wide-eyes.

“Is everything alright?” Carla asks. 

Jimmy looks at his boyfriend imploringly. “Char, love, what’s wrong?”

“ _ Supreme Court Rules: Same-Sex Marriage Legal in all Fifty States _ .” The man reads aloud. 

Carla gasps and Jimmy feels his eyes grow wet. 

“W-what?”

Charlie looks at him, tears streaming down his face, and grinning widely. “They did it, James. They said we could get married!”

“Only two-thousand and fifteen years in the making,” Carla says. 

“Well,” Jimmy starts, yearning to correct her “I could argue that we weren’t  _ really _ ready for a decision like this until nineteen—”

“Stop being a nerd and let me kiss you.” Charlie cuts him off, and Jimmy obliges. 

“We can get married.” He utters, joy evident in his tone. “We can  _ get married _ .”

“I’ll turn on the TV so we can get the full story,” Carla announces, and Jimmy hobbles off to the couch as best he can.

The station blares with people talking, crying, and cheering. Rainbows filled the screen. Suddenly Jimmy realizes that Charlie’s disappeared. “Wha—” He’s cut off by the image of Charlie rolling in, holding something in his lap.

“James Matthew Campbell,” he starts, and Jimmy gasps at what’s happening.

“I have loved you longer than most, and I have tolerated you for longer. I have journeyed with you through joy, tears, and endless longing. I have been your biggest fan, and your brother in arms. And I have waited too damn long to make my love official. Will you, Jimmy, give me the honor of doing that?”

He could hear Carla crying, and he was too. “I- _ yes _ .”

They kissed for what felt like hours, and suddenly Jimmy was thirty-two again, catching the eye of the curly-haired boy in the wheelchair at the  _ Blue Whips’s  _ Korean Victory gig. 

Finally, he comes up for air. “We should call the guys.” He says pointedly. 

“I’ll dial them,” Carla says, putting her smartphone on speaker. 

“Donny, it’s Jimmy.” 

“Who is this?”

“Jimmy. Jimmy Campbell.”

“What?”

“Jimmy.” He repeats.

“Who? I can’t hear a damn—”

“Put your hearing aids in!” Charlie yells, and Jimmy whacks him.

“Alright, who is this again?”

Jimmy sighs. “Jimmy Campbell.”

“Oh! Jimmy, hi! Why’d you call?”

“Have you seen the news?”

“No, why?”

“Just...put it on.”

He hears the buzzing of the TV in the background and then Donny says “Holy shit man, congratulations!”

Jimmy grins. “Thanks. I finally have a wedding to invite you to.”

“You mean Charlie proposed?” 

“Yup.”

“That’s awesome, man! I can’t wait to tell Jules once she gets back from bridge.”

“And the rest of your family can come too. Sara, Harry, Flora, Michael…” Jimmy trails off as he tries to remember the rest. 

“Flora’s husband, Michael’s wife, and Julie.” Donny finishes for his friend. “That’s it, I believe.”

“Great. Now I’ve just gotta call Johnny and Wayne…” 

Jimmy stops when he remembers that Wayne isn’t around anymore, nor are his other friends, Nick and Davy. They’d all passed long before this moment. 

“They’re here in spirit,” Carla says gently, reading his thoughts. 

“They’ll still be there Jimmy, don’t worry. We’ll reserve seats.” Donny echoes. Jimmy sniffles. 

“Thanks, Donny, I’ll see you soon.”

Next, he calls Johnny.

“Hello?” A weary but cheerful voice answers. 

“Johnny,” Jimmy says, precise and clear. “It’s Jimmy Campbell.”

“Who?”

“Jimmy. You know me, Simpson. We played in the  _ Donny Nova Band _ ?”

“I think I’d remember being in a band.”

Jimmy sighed. He felt awful for his friend. Sure,  _ everyone’s  _ memory was failing them, but with his memory already being shot before, Johnny’s was especially awful.

“You were, I swear it. We met up in nineteen fourty-five? Our leader was Donny?”

“I, uh, sorry, it doesn’t ring any bells.”

“Remember the radio contest, how we felt standing up there while Julia sang  _ Welcome Home _ ?”

“Ohhh,  _ now  _ I remember. Jimmy, hello! What’s wrong?”

“Have you seen the news?”

“What news?”

Jimmy hears a voice, probably Clara, Johnny’s daughter, say something about gay marriage.

“Oh, that’s cool! Why did you ask if I knew?”

“ _ I’m  _ gay, Johnny, remember? I’m dating Charles Benson, the Korean vet who’s wheelchair-bound?”

“Oh, yeah, him. Did he propose or something?”

“Yeah, actually. And you’re invited to our wedding! I’ll call you when we set the date, alright?”

“Okay.”

Despite Carla’s insistence, both Jimmy and Charlie agreed that they didn’t want a big wedding. They were both too old. They just called a priest to officiate it and cleared out a venue for three hours two Thursday’s from then.

* * *

The day finally arrived. Jimmy and Charlie got dressed in their best suits, and Carla also dressed to the nines, drove them. Donny and Julia had already arrived, along with their daughter Sara and her husband, their kids Flora and Michael, and Michael’s daughter Julie.

“We're Just waiting on Johnny,” Jimmy told the priest. He and Clara arrived fifteen minutes later, and the ceremony commenced.

“Do you, Charles Andrew Benson, take James Campbell to be your lawfully wedded husband,  to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?”

Charlie grinned. “I do.”

“And do you, James Matthew Campbell take Charles Benson to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?”

“I do.”

“Then you may kiss the groom.”

Jimmy’s pretty sure the reception goes on much longer than three hours. He parties as hard as he can at ninety-five, and he’s sure he’s never been happier in his life. 

_ You’ve arrived at last my friend.  _ A voice in his head says.

And feels pretty damn good. 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I can't write old people can you tell.


End file.
